House of Cards
by ncfan
Summary: A child sees many things. Hanabi sees more than most. She sees the truth of the Hyuuga clan. Hanabi, Hinata, others.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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Everyone discounts the observations of a child; I have learned to keep my mouth shut to keep the observations that the elders would prefer not to hear out of the air.

The world of the Hyuuga Main House is cutthroat at best, and a nest of vipers at worst. My uncle died before I was born, but from what I understand he found this out the hard way, and died for his discovering it only too late; I've heard two different stories about exactly what happened, but despite the latter saying that he went to Kumo of his own free will, I can well believe that my father forced him. It seems the sort of thing he would do under stress.

The world of the Branch House is hardly any better. You would think there would be some sort of solidarity between the sealed members of my clan, but in truth they are a house divided, thanks to the machinations of the Main House. They would tear each other apart for a chance to be recognized; my house has even on occasion dangled the tantalizing reward of having the seal removed in order to have two Branch members they see as threats kill each other in the attempt to free themselves.

The most civilized clan in Konohagakure is in fact a house of treacherous, bloodthirsty mercenaries.

Small wonder Hinata is so scorned.

She gets it from her mother of course, her gentleness. Our mother was a medic from a non-clan family, named Akahana, 'The red flower', which is odd, considering from what I have been told she looked like Hinata too; I get my looks squarely from my father.

Akahana was respected for her gentleness and soft-spoken temperament, but Hinata would have done well to have been more like the rest of us, to have been ruthless and duplicitous. Instead, her kind spirit and bleeding heart makes her the target of scorn and belittlement.

She is a dove in a flock of scavenging crows.

She has always been slower than me; slower to learn, slower to anger, slower to fight. She has a higher degree of body fat than most Hyuuga; she got that from our mother too. That's not to say she's fat, though; at twelve I'm taller and heavier than she was at this age. But because of the way her body's configured, she'll never be as tall as most Hyuuga and her muscles just won't harden (It's not for lack of effort; I've watched from my hiding place as she shreds her hands and bruises her legs in fruitless attempts to grow).

She is soft, she stutters incessantly, and she doesn't like to fight. Thus I am stronger than her, I, bloodthirsty little Hanabi.

I, who have thick Hyuuga blood.

I, who in a day learned a technique that it took her a week of training from dawn to dusk to master.

I, who am quick and fierce as anyone can be.

So the Elders say. But I know a secret. A secret that would tear them apart if they knew.

Hyuuga Hinata, the weak heiress, is actually the strongest of all of us. And not for the reasons you might expect.

Her Hyuuga blood is thinner than mine. She first learned to use the Byakugan at a later age than I did. But she can see farther, process more, far more than I can.

She is the lesser fighter. But whereas the moves I slide fluidly through came naturally to me, she learned those moves through blood, sweat, tears and effort. She worked far harder to get where she is than I ever did; she climbed more mountains, and overcame more "You can't"'s than I ever had to.

She is the tender-hearted one. She knows how to heal, whereas I can only destroy.

She is stronger, and if I stood against her, truly, she would destroy me, without ever casting a blow. Because love is stronger than that, and how can I not love the sister who taught me how to walk and speak and read?

She is stronger, yet I have to prove her weak. I have to be better at everything, just to survive. They won't brand her. She's the eldest; it's unheard-of, and the elders' insanity only goes so far.

But I do not have that luxury. I am younger; I am vulnerable. It is only my skills that keep me from being cast out; it is only my skills that keep me alive.

So I pit my will against my much-stronger sister, and hope we don't collapse like a house of cards.

Hinata is stronger, but in the end it doesn't matter. Because to the Hyuuga elders, we are throw pieces in a game of dice. They pit us against each other, deriding Hinata but hoping that I will lose (Because it's not natural that the younger should be stronger than the elder. Hizashi was stronger than our father, and look what happened to him; will I be asked to make that sort of sacrifice someday?).

We are nothing to them; the elders don't make any distinction between Main and Branch anymore, between heiress and heiress presumptive. They are too far gone in their own game to recognize what they're doing to their own clan.

We are Hyuuga.

Bloodthirsty.

Ruthless.

Cold.

Betrayers.

And one day, Hinata and I will tear each other apart, just as all Hyuuga do.


End file.
